Irene Dunne

Hedda Hopper

Irene Can't Wait for 'Heaven Train'

Irene Dunne returns to the screen in "The Heaven Train" because nobody - nobody - could turn down that picture. It's a religious western, with Irene playing the mother superior to a group of nuns being escorted west by a hard-shelled Baptist minister, Jimmy Stewart, and a tough wagon master, Duke Wayne. Producer Ross Hunter and James Lee Barrett are polishing their script now for production in '66. ...

(Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1965)

Maybe that's only another rumored project, but it certainly sounds like one Irene really could have considered. She would have liked to play a nun and regreted that she missed the part of the Swedish nun in "The Bell's of St. Mary" (Ingrid Berman played it). And I assume that she would have enjoyed to work with close friend Jimmy Stewart. The two of them completed by Duke Wayne, well, that's quite a cast!

Looking at the date, one possible reason why this film never was made could be the death of Frank in October 1965. But this is mere speculation on my part, and we'll never know... however, what a pity!

My Favorite Recipe

BY

Irene Dunne

        Movie Star

 Marble Cake

1/2 cupful butter

1 cupful sugar

1 3/4 cupfuls cake flour

1/2 teaspoonful salt

1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking powder

1/2 cupful milk

1 tablespoonful maple sirup

1 tablespoonful melted chocolate

1/2 teaspoonful cinnamon

1/4 teaspoonful nutmeg

1/4 teaspoonful allspice

Place butter in warm placer where it will soften slightly, but must not melt. Cream sugar in butter gradually. Add the yolks of the eggs of the eggs, which have been beaten. Sift flour and salt together several times and add alternately with the milk. Sift baking powder in a little of the flour, which is added last. Fold in egg whites, which have been beaten stiff.

Place one-third of the mixture in a seperate bowl and add spices, sirup and melted chocolate to it. Drop a spoonful of each mixture alternately into cake pan. Bake in moderate oven.

This cake is excellent to serve if the meal seems a little rich. It is not heavy and is delicious without icing.

(The Cuba (Kansas) Tribune, October 22, 1936)

This seems to be a delicious marble cake recipe; especially to use these spices sounds good to me. But one question is still unanswered - how many eggs? In the newspaper's ingredients list the cinnamon turned up twice but the eggs were absent. I haven't tried it yet but similar recipes work with four or five eggs. If someone has an idea about the correct number of eggs, please, let us know!

Happy baking cakes! :)